


Nameless

by shockfactor



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU, Dark Comedy, Meta stuff, Multi, Poor Our Man, Reincarnation, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-17 17:34:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14194113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shockfactor/pseuds/shockfactor
Summary: Oscar Mann wishes he could go back, and fix everything. The good left undone, the things left unsaid, the lives left unsaved.But what will he do once he gets the chance?The answer? Mess up. A LOT.





	1. No Name

**Author's Note:**

> I lay my rightful claim as the first man to post Our Man fanfiction.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oscar gets a second chance.

It's as if time is standing still.

Oscar Mann realizes, sitting on the back of this little cart, in the middle of the plains, just how far he's come since he was a cadet. The wings on his back, and on his shoulders. The gear at his hips no longer feels like a weight- instead, it feels like just another limb, an extension of his body. The blades feel like they're attached to his hands. The people on this cart... people that he'd loath to call friends in his old life... well, they were as close as family to him now.

And now they're going to die.

Well, not necessarily. They've survived worse before- in Eren and Mikasa and Armin's cases, they were at Shingashina. ALL of them were at Trost. Connie was at Utgard. So was Krista. Jean and Armin were right beside him when the Female Titan appeared. The same Female Titan ... 'piloted', for lack of a better word, by Annie. The same Annie they're trying to cart away from here, with Titans running after them like the devil. Faster than the cart.

They're going to catch up. Soon.

Mikasa is on the cart with him, as is the unconscious Eren. Broke his figurative arm out punching out Reiner- the Armored Titan. *Fuck* that thought never got easier to swallow. He wants to hate Reiner. It's his fault Oscar's parents are dead... why can't he bring himself to hate Reiner? Why can't he hate Bertoldt? Why can't he hate Annie? It's not fair how hard it is. Knowing your enemy, hating them... that's supposed to come easy.

None of this soldiering business has come easy. Especially losing his friends. That part was the hardest. It had all started at Trost. Thomas, Mina... so full of life, so unafraid, it seemed, until death came calling. Then Marco... no one even saw Marco go. It was unfair that someone so good had to die in such a way. Levi Squad, who had tried to teach him, and Eren... sure, they weren't perfect, but... and then Miche, and Nanaba, and Gelgar. God, why wasn't he strong enough? Why did he listen to Miche? Why did he let Nanaba and Gelgar go out and die on their own? Why didn't he stand and fight? Why did he let Ymir throw away everything she had with him, with Krista, with all of them, and just run off? Why didn't he help Hannes? 

So many people died, or worse, because he was so focused on being the next Levi. Humanity's next rallying cry. The face on the paintings. 

Why was he so _fucking weak_. Is there  _nothing_ he can save? 

As the Titans close in, he looks back at the crystal that holds Annie's unconscious form. The crystal formed when she was captured at last, back when they thought they were winning, or as close to it as they could get at the time. 

There's something he can save. If he doesn't... then those deaths will be forfeit. Those people will have died for nothing.

He turns to Mikasa. "Mikasa! These horses aren't gonna be able to run forever! We'll get overrun!"

"I know," she replies, her expression stony as always. She always did have it together.

Oscar shifts from a seat to a kneeling position. "Got any ideas!?"  
  
She doesn't reply. He groans almost inaudibly over the creaking of the cart and the protests of the horses.  _'Well, shit... any second thoughts, Oscar? Any other bright ideas? Maybe the horses actually can outrun them? Or maybe the others will get off their horses? No, no, no, this is the same kind of shit thinking that gets more people killed, stop it! Ugh... well.... I had a good run of it, I guess... I've survived so much up to now. My luck has to run out eventually. My shit fucking luck.'_

He shifts over closer to them, eyeing the unconscious Eren. He reaches into his coat. He's not sure why, even as he's taking his weary, battered journal and putting it by Eren's hand. No one's going to read it, if he's honest with himself. If they do, it'll probably just become some patriotic war story bullshit that they use for recruitment drives, which is NOT what he wants. He doesn't want to throw more men into the meat grinder he calls his life, now. Enough are going already.

But hell, best case scenario, they just have something to remember him by.

"What are you doing?"

It's an honest inquiry, one that's actually got some emotion behind it, which leads Oscar to believe for a split second that it's not Mikasa asking the question. Looking up, though, he knows it is. She's staring daggers at him. Someone... was it Ymir? Someone made a joke about how the two seemed to not speak at all, yet always be on the same wavelength. If that's the case, then he's about sure that it's less that she doesn't know, and more that she  _knows_ , and wishes that she didn't. Her eyes follow him as he stands, and Oscar turns to face the horde of titans following them. Every muscle in his body, every bone, every nerve is screaming for him to sit the fuck down. This isn't the mountain you want to die on. 

No, no, no. This IS the mountain he wants to die on. This is one of many mountains he's been ready to die on. He's been ready to die since the first time he pressed his fist to his heart, but now he's  _ready_. He's tired of all this. All this death, these titans, this fighting. He's stopped caring about the afterlife. An eternity of blissful oblivion suits him fine. But... he's a soldier. That's what he's become after these years. He's got a mission, to make sure that Annie is brought back into custody. THAT is his mountain.

He draws his blades from their place in his gear. They're dull, and he swears the one on the left is nearing cracking already. It'll have to do. 

Sasha looks at him, and opens her mouth to say something. Probably scream it. He's got more on his mind. The cart passes a tree, and he springs into action, firing off his ODMG and tethering to it. An unlucky titan runs up even with it while he's in flight, and his hooks bury into its hip. Using his momentum, he swings around its back, before aiming for the nape, and going in for the kill. His blade holds as the titan's flesh is rent wide, down to its ugly, titan bones. In front of the titan, he sees Jean and Sasha's retreating forms, watching him with a mix of awe and horror.

He replies with a smile that he doubts they can see, before whipping about and getting back to business, on to the next titan. This one looks eerily like Thomas, with those long, blonde, shaggy sideburns.

Abomination.

His blades rip through its nape like paper. That one was for Thomas. 

The next one falls as he flies over its shoulder, sweeping by its nape with practiced ease, and an offhand slice. That one, for Mina.

He switches his left hand, dull blade to a backhand grip as he spirals through the air, mowing down another two. Flying through the air, he slays another. And another. And another. And another. And another.

It's not enough. He'll never kill enough Titans to feel like those deaths, those sacrifices were worth it. That they were acceptable. There had to have been something he could have done to save them, he thinks, but he's spending so much time thinking he fails to see the titan in front of him, who effortlessly stops him mid flight with his hands. Before it can grab him, he slashes with his blades at its fat, ugly hands, and breaks them both. 

Shit.

He's done all he can do, he reasons, and he flees as fast as his gear can carry him. No use dying on this mountain now. No, dammit, he wants to die here!

But yet, he can't bring himself to. Something in him drives him on to cowardice. Live, screams his body. Live.

He doesn't want to live anymore.

* * *

It's as if in the span of blinking once, he's awoken from a nightmare. He's standing on the same plains, but there's no titans in sight.

There's... bodies?

Oh god, there's bodies. Trading a living nightmare for another. Judging by the jackets and horses, and the smashed carts, they're his friends' bodies. Fear tells him to stay back, but morbid curiousity drives him on.

The first is Jean. Or rather, an arm and a leg that belong to him. Oscar is certain of that. He idly wonders if anyone survived. Who will write to his mother? Will anyone tell her? Will she figure it out on her own?

What a sad, sad sight. Almost as sad as Sasha, smashed into a tree. Judging by the state of her gear, she tried to ape Oscar. Judging by the way her head is at an awkward angle on her neck compared to her body, and the gleam of bone in the warm summer rain- oh, it  _is raining_ , isn't it, stupid fucking dream- it appears she died in the attempt. A scarf lays on the rain-soaked earth, but there is no sign of Mikasa, living or dead. The same can be said of both Eren and Connie, although judging by the state of the cart, and the skinny, wiry lower body severed from its owner and laying on the cart's mangled remains, Armin is dead, too.

This must be what would have happened if he'd stayed... but where is he?

Oh, wait. He's standing here, which means, he did leave.

Means he's a coward.

Huh. What a surprise.

The only more surprising thing is when he wakes up sleeping under Thomas' bunk back in training.

He screams so loud it wakes up the entire men's barracks.


	2. Loop 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loop 1 of... who knows how many?

Oscar's scream wakes the men's barracks. Everyone reacts differently.

Bertolt and Reiner,  _fucking traitors_ , ask if he's alright, with the former coming over to check on him.

Samuel tells him to shut the fuck up.

Connie screams as well, before Jean smacks him upside the head.

Marco's reaction is similar to Bertolt's. 

Eren just stares at him, as do Armin and that other fellow from their squad when they get  _fucking devoured_. Thomas simply tells everyone that Oscar must be having a nightmare.

"Right?" Thomas asks, eyes filled with concern.

Oscar swallows the bile building in his throat.

"Y-yeah," he rasps, running a hand through raven hair that's stuck up in a morning frizz. "Just a b-bad dream. I'm fine."

It's about time to get up anyway, if a bit early, so they go ahead and start getting ready for when Shadis comes to investigate the screaming.

But Oscar isn't so sure this isn't a nightmare either. He stumbles out of barracks on wobbly legs, headed for the women's barracks. 

Once he arrives, he slowly opens the door, noting that everyone seems to be in their right place, including Ymir, who is leaning off of her bunk at an odd angle, as if she was looking at the floor, or at the bottom bunk.

"What the fuck do you want?" she mouths.

Oscar simply shuts the door.

* * *

"Recruit Mann!"

Oscar nearly drops his salute as he cringes at Shadis' outburst, right against his ear. He assumed that when he'd walked behind him, he was going to scold someone else first. 

The instructor walks up to his right side. "Would you care to inform your fellow cadets as to why they had to wake up an hour before muster to the sound of you pissing your pants like a CHILD!?"

"Sir! I was having a nightmare, sir!"

"Well, shit, beanstalk, I'm glad you were thinking of me! Start running!"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

Oscar gulps as he begins the long run of shame around the barracks grounds, as Shadis continues. 

"Recruit Ymir, would you care to explain what's so funny back there!?"

"Nothin', sir!"

"Would you like to join Recruit Mann on a romantic jog around the grounds!?"

"No, sir!"

"Too bad, go ahead and get moving! Recruit Springer, I see you also take enjoyment in watching your fellow recruits being little shits! You get five laps!"

It takes about three minutes for Ymir to catch up to him. If he didn't know better, having seen that she's a goddamn Titan Shifter, he'd assume she was just running on adrenaline. If she wanted to, she could have just ran these three laps around him in a hot minute, but for some reason, she slows down instead of passing him. Green eyes meet amber.

"Mornin'," Oscar says. The word feels as awkward as her gaze.

"You owe me for this shit."

 _'Where have I heard that before..._ '

With a sigh, he shrugs his shoulders. "I guess I'll find a way to make it up to you, then."

A trademark Ymir frown scrunches her brow and twists her lip. "You'd better."

* * *

Graduation comes fast. The same conversations pass as the last time he was here, but he just passes it off as coincidence. There's only so much you can say, and besides, he doesn't remember every little detail from his dreams, just the important things. There's no difference in the order of their graduation, everyone who's in the top ten was in the top ten back in his dream/life/thing. He idly wonders why Ymir isn't in there, with the rest of the Shifters. She's definitely not weaker than Krista. 'Historia' is such a stupid fucking name, he's glad that part of the dream isn't gonna be coming to pass... hopefully.

He doesn't make it to the top ten, although according to gossip he's right behind Ymir in Shadis' eyes. Which is either great or terrible, depending on if you mean in the physical or figurative sense. He thinks he's gonna join the Survey Corps, but maybe he'll change his mind and go to the Garrison. 

He doesn't.

* * *

 

Trost comes as it did in his dream. He's starting to get scared now. Krista is helping him along, and she can't help but notice it. Oscar's a big man, with big emotions, and he wears them on his sleeve. The fact that she's currently the most stable of the two is unnerving. Conny's with them, but he's more focused on keeping his own shit together and not pissing himself.

"Oscar, we need to find the others!" shouts the little blonde over the practical roar of the destruction around them. Her voice is enough to snap him out of his trance. It's happening just like it did in his 'dream', and he's fucking  _horrified_ , but he knows if he lets his friends get killed because of his losing his shit, then he'll be living in a nightmare far worse than the one preceding this.

"R-right!" he replies. He knows she's going to bring up Ymir, and Ymir is gonna be on the roof to his left, because that's what happened in the dream.

"Ymir went a-"

"Ymir went ahead to scout, yeah," Oscar interrupted her. "She's right there." Sure enough, she was, and he diverted his course to land on the rooftop next to her, shingles cracking beneath the sudden weight of a 6'4" mass of meat landing on them out of the sky, and grabbing the brunette shifter's attention. Two softer landings indicate that his teammates have arrived.

"What?"

"What has you in such a great mood?" Connie asks, eyebrow twitching. He and Ymir can't stand each other, at least not right now. Later on in his dreams they had some sort of tense friendship.

 Ymir jerks her head towards the breach in the Wall. "See that?"

"Oh, what a joy..." Oscar mutters. "Looks like we gotta go try and plug the gap."

"With what, big guy?"

"I don't know, a giant rock?"

"Are you fucking stupid?"

 _"If only you knew, you prickly bitch."_   he thought to himself as he stared at the gap, and the titans that milled about in front of it. About 5 or so. If his dreams served correctly he'd kill all but one of them, that one being one that Krista would kill, to Connie and Oscar's shock and Ymir's rapture. Of course he wasn't going to go try to pick up a rock, but he figured he'd go with the flow of the dream, and see where it took him. With practiced ease, he fired off his hooks and began weaving through the eerily familiar rooftops of Trost. A few cheeky titans peered up at him from the streets below, although none really stood out other than one ugly bearded Titan that he swears he's seen somewhere before.

His attention is called back to his front as the four cadets approach the breach in the wall. The dream gets one thing wrong- Ymir gets the first kill, with ease that she normally doesn't have with her ODMG in his memories. It's the titan Krista is supposed to kill. Instead, she and Connie team up to take on another, while Oscar is left on his own to deal with a crooked-jawed one that he kills in his waking nightmare. His hooks find purchase in its ribcage, and he slowly circles around it, looking for some sort of opening before suddenly being swatted into the wall.

Swatted into the wall?

Swatted into the wall. 

His spine snaps like a piece of tightly-strung twine on impact, and suddenly he loses all sensation in his lower body. He's still a good 100 feet up, so the fall is probably going to kill him. 

"Ah, shit!" he hisses/shouts/cries/some unholy combination of the three. Krista calls out to him, before barely dodging the titan she's circling as it attempts to take a nice bite out of her bottom half. Ymir swoops into action, cutting through the nape like it's paper, before inadvertently landing boot-first on the titan behind it, kicking it in the fucking eye. He's not sure which titan decided that he had to die today, as he was sure as hell it wasn't the one he was attacking. Must have been the one outlier that Ymir just landed on.

 Cutting his eyes down, he realizes that he has about 3 seconds before he hits the ground. He could try to fire off his ODMG, but... come to think of it, if that dream is gonna continue playing out in the waking world, he doesn't want to be here for it.

He smashes into the cobblestone with a loud crunch and the worst pain he's ever experienced in his life.

* * *

And then immediately wakes up in his bunk. This time, he doesn't scream. Instead, he groans under his breath, pressing his palms into his eyes.

"You've gotta be kidding me..." he moans, despondent as he faces the not-so-new day. 


End file.
